Pandemic

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health confirmed another case of measles yesterday, bringing the total to 14 since early May. The patient, a woman in her early 20s, has recovered from the disease and is back at work at Hill Holiday, a communications company in the John Hancock Tower, where the outbreak began. No other suspect cases have been identified within Hill Holiday. For more information on measles, visit www.bphc.org , the Boston Public Health Commission’s website, or www.state.ma.us/dph, the Department of Public Health’s website.”

The number of mumps cases in Iowa has declined dramatically over the past few weeks, and an outbreak of nearly 2,000 cases appears to be contained, state public health officials said Friday.

‘People became more aware of it, people were being diagnosed faster, staying home when they had mumps so they are not transmitting it, and we had many more people get vaccinated, so our number of susceptible people went down,’ said Dr. Patricia Quinlisk, state epidemiologist.

Iowa was the worst hit of 12 states, mostly in the Midwest, that have reported a total of more than 3,200 mumps cases. No deaths and few hospitalizations have been reported, but the numbers dwarf mumps reports from recent years.

As of Wednesday, there were 1,938 confirmed and probable cases of mumps reported by the Iowa Department of Public Health. The number was up just 14 cases from the previous week.”

And everyone is worried about avian flu? Looks like it’s going to be death by childhood disease instead. I guess it doesn’t matter what specific outbreak you fall prey to, once one of these decides to mutate we will all be in trouble. The word from the authorities on the measles is that if you were born between 1957 and the late 60’s your immunization wasn’t all that effective…Oops.

Maybe Fred has the better idea, a small isolated place in the country on a nice quiet gravel road…Just wear a mask when you come to visit, please.